Transforming disfigured and disoriented areas into routable switchboxes

Abstract

Routing an entire VLSI circuit requires partitioning the circuit (routing area) into smaller, localized routing areas. Using non-rectangular, rotated switchbox shapes (and therefore non-Manhattan routing layout) has the potential to simplify the partitioning of the circuit into routable areas and to use 'dead space' on a chip for routing. The method described in this paper for generating non-rectangular, rotated switchboxes borrows ideas from computer graphics.<>